Blood Med

by Jason Webster

  ‘It looks like Amy had a blog,’ Castro said. ‘Wrote a lot about Spain, living here, the food and customs and that kind of thing.’

  ‘Did she have any friends?’

  ‘Facebook friends? She’s got over a thousand here. But I can’t see if they’re close friends or just, you know, Facebook friends. There’s a difference.’

  ‘What are they saying about her?’

  ‘A couple of people are asking how she is, say they haven’t heard from her, is everything OK.’

  ‘So no one on Facebook knows that she’s dead yet?’

  ‘Not by the looks of it.’

  ‘OK,’ said Cámara. He closed his eyes as he spoke. ‘So the blog, travel stuff. Anything else?’

  ‘There’s a long article she wrote about meeting Ruiz Costa. How she came over here and they fell in love and got married. Living in Valencia and her amazing life. Almost like a romantic novel.’

  ‘Where in the US is she from?’

  ‘Milwaukee, as far as I can tell.’

  Of course, hence ‘M I L’ in her password. It was also the home of Harley-Davidson, Cámara thought to himself, momentarily distracted.

  ‘Have you read the article?’ Albelda called over. ‘About meeting Ruiz Costa and her romantic Spanish love story?’

  ‘As much as I can,’ said Castro. ‘I’m not sure if there’s anything there. Seems they were very happy, according to this.’

  ‘Move on,’ said Cámara. ‘What else are you seeing there?’

  ‘There’s a lot more political stuff here in the past few months,’ Castro said. ‘She’s posting up articles from newspapers and magazines about the situation in Spain, about Valencia. And, well, I think she’s putting up some material of her own, kind of doing less of the travel blog stuff and more on the crisis.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Well, there’s a piece here about a food bank in the Benicalap district. It’s got her name on it so I’m assuming she wrote it. Stuff about the new poor in Valencia and how people who used to run their own businesses are now having to live off food handouts.’

  ‘OK,’ Cámara said.

  ‘Then there’s another piece about corruption. All that money that was siphoned off from the charity fund.’

  ‘Remind me.’

  ‘Last year. A group of officials in local government set up a charity to help starving kids in Africa, then took all the money for themselves. Spent it on cocaine and hookers.’

  ‘Lucky bastards,’ Albelda growled.

  ‘What does she say about it?’ asked Cámara.

  ‘Just reporting the story as far as I can see. But there’s also an interview with one of the lawyers involved in the case. She did that herself.’

  ‘So she’s trying to turn herself into a news reporter of sorts.’

  ‘Something like that.’

  But still an amateur, Cámara thought to himself.

  ‘She did something on the opening of that new private clinic near Burjassot last month,’ Castro said, still reading from the screen.

  ‘I remember that,’ Albelda said. ‘It cost seventy-five million euros to build that place. No expense spared when it’s private.’

  ‘Anything interesting there?’ Cámara asked.

  ‘It was opened by a town councillor,’ said Castro. ‘She’s actually quite harsh about it, contrasting the cuts in public health services with this fancy new hospital. And wondering why a representative of the Town Hall was there in the first place. She says he should have been defending ordinary hospitals rather than championing a new private one.’

  ‘Who was the councillor?’ asked Cámara.

  ‘Javier Flores,’ Castro said. ‘He’s pretty high up, isn’t he?’

  ‘Very close to the mayoress,’ said Albelda.

  ‘Well, Amy doesn’t have a high opinion of him, from the looks of it. Says his presence there was “disgusting” and “an insult to the vast majority of Valencians who can’t afford health insurance”.’

  ‘Amen to that.’

  ‘She was getting more political, then,’ said Cámara.

  ‘Hard not to be when you’ve been in this city for a while,’ Albelda said.

  ‘What’s the last thing on her Facebook page?’ Cámara asked.

  They waited while Castro scrolled up.

  ‘She posted something in the morning, around half-past nine. Something about going to meet someone who was going to give her a “scoop”. I’m not sure about that word. It means something like a big news story, right?’

  ‘Hey, listen to this!’

  Lozano spun on his chair towards them, his fingers resting on the laptop. Cámara and Albelda both sat up.

  ‘Some ex-boyfriend of Amy’s is over from the US.’

  ‘Now?’ Cámara asked.

  ‘Right now,’ said Lozano. ‘Or I think so. Look, there are these emails from him over the past week. Over a dozen of them.’

  Cámara stood up and walked over to see. Albelda followed.

  ‘He’s in Spain?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lozano.

  ‘An ex-boyfriend from America?’

  ‘Yes. He’s called Ryan Cox.’

  ‘What do the emails say?’

  ‘Look, he got in touch just over a week ago.’

  Lozano clicked open the email.

  ‘Says he’s sorry for not being in touch for so many years. But he’s coming to Spain – landing in Madrid the next day. And wants to meet.’

  ‘How do you know it’s an ex-boyfriend?’ Cámara asked.

  ‘Because look. This is Amy’s reply. She’s says it’s all over between them. She’s happy he’s coming to Spain, but she doesn’t think it would be good to meet. She’s started a new life, etc. etc.’

  ‘So she’s saying no.’

  ‘Kind of. The guy doesn’t stop emailing her. He sends another three emails before taking off. Then there’s a lull of almost a day. That must have been when he was flying. Then they pick up again. Seven more emails in one day. Once he lands in Madrid, presumably.’

  ‘Seven emails?’ Albelda whistled. Cámara could see the dark look developing in his eyes.

  ‘Did Amy always reply?’ he asked Lozano.

  ‘Not always. I think that’s why he keeps emailing her.’

  ‘What does she say?’

  ‘She’s still fond of him, but . . . here it is, that she can’t see him and doesn’t want him to come to Valencia. It’s too soon. That maybe one day they can be friends again, but not right now, not after what happened.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t find anything.’

  ‘Sounds bad,’ Albelda said in a low voice.

  Cámara could feel the group adrenalin kicking in. And he could sense . . . something. Was this it?

  ‘How did they leave it?’ he asked. ‘What do the last emails say?’

  ‘She’s saying that she doesn’t want to see him, repeats it. And then here, two days ago, he says he’s coming anyway. Catching the train and coming to Valencia. She can’t stop him. It’s fate.’

  ‘He uses those words?’

  ‘Here,’ said Lozano, ‘see for yourself.’

  Cámara leaned down to get a closer look. The sentence was small but clear on the screen.

  It’s fate.

  He stood up straight and turned to Albelda.

  ‘I’ll go and get Laura,’ Albelda said, walking to the door. ‘She needs to see this.’

  THIRTEEN

  ‘YOU HEARD THE latest?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’re to wear our uniforms at all times when on duty. Direct orders from Maldonado.’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘I’m serious. It’s true. Something about respect for the King, honouring the institution of the Policía Nacional.’

  ‘Is he dead, then?’

  ‘Still no word.’

  ‘I can’t believe it.’

  ‘Well, believe it. It’s happening. As of tomorrow. An official memo’s go
ne round. Didn’t you see it?’

  ‘I was too busy being a policeman. Trying to solve murders, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Well, it’s there. Anyone not complying will be disciplined.’

  ‘Hah!’ Cámara put down his beer and shut his eyes. Maldonado trying to justify his existence again. Was this another twist in the game he had started? It would make sacking one of them much easier if he had another ‘excuse’, such as a disciplinary offence. Or a fresh one in Cámara’s case. The murder squad were all members of the investigating police; they never wore uniforms except on ceremonial occasions.

  ‘How it’s meant to make us better detectives is beyond me,’ Torres said.

  ‘I don’t even know where my uniform is. Must be in a box somewhere. Or did I leave it in Madrid?’

  Cámara had spent much of the previous summer at Alicia’s flat in the capital. It was less than a year ago but it felt like an age away.

  ‘Well, you’d better find it quickly, or borrow one. Otherwise . . .’

  Torres let the sentence drop.

  There was a greater police presence on the streets that evening. Mayoress Emilia Delgado and her right-hand man, Councillor Javier Flores, had called for ‘preventative measures’ after the disturbances of the previous night, in which eleven people had been arrested. It was more important than ever, they insisted, to maintain order at such a difficult time for the country. ‘Respect’ – for the King, for the country, for practically anything that symbolised the status quo – had quickly turned into a new way of describing – and disguising – authoritarian control. On the table between them lay a copy of a local newspaper with a picture of the mayoress on the front. Emilia had condemned the demonstrators as ‘scum’.

  ‘You know what I heard one guy say today?’ Torres finished his beer and ordered another one for himself. ‘The second-in-command of the riot squad, what’s-his-name . . .’

  ‘Mestre,’ said Cámara.

  ‘Right. He’s talking to a group of them about last night, and you know what he calls the demonstrators?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The enemy.’

  Cámara shrugged. For some reason it did not surprise him. It was easy to fall into thinking about ordinary people as ‘them’ – separate, non-police, second-raters. He had seen it creeping its way into his own thoughts at times in the past. ‘They’ did not see or know what officers did; ‘they’ did not have the powers that officers had; the bad guys lived among ‘them’ – that was where they were to be found. And he did his best to watch it, not to allow it to grow. But for some of his colleagues it was ingrained. Some even had it before they joined: it was why they joined in the first place.

  ‘They were just demonstrating,’ Torres said. ‘If the riot squad hadn’t been so fucking heavy-handed none of this would have happened.’

  He motioned to the newspaper. Cámara had already seen the image, folded underneath and out of sight. Next to the picture of the mayoress was a photo taken the night before of a girl in her late teens with a bleeding face, the wound inflicted during the demonstration when a police truncheon had connected with her head. Half the city was irate about this act of ‘police brutality’; the other half – the governing half – was congratulating the riot squad for doing such a good job maintaining law and order.

  ‘What do you do,’ Cámara said, ‘when the real bandits are the people in power?’

  He could talk like this with Torres. Their politics were not the same – if anywhere, Torres was somewhere on the traditional Left – but instinctively they shared the bond of not being on the Right, which was where, if they thought about it, most of their colleagues probably lay. Some harder than others, some hardened by virtue of being in the police. The King’s sudden illness and the new, strained, almost crackling mood that had quickly descended upon the country was bringing political divisions to the fore. Were people on one side or the other? It was not intellectual; it was visceral. Dress, hairstyle, sometimes just the look in someone’s eye, said everything.

  But tonight, sitting in the security of their bar on the other side of town, Torres did not want to talk politics. There was only one thing on his mind.

  ‘How’s the murder case going?’

  Cámara brought him up to speed. Maldonado could try to split them apart, to break the partnership between them that had worked so well and for so long that it had become something of an institution in Homicidios, but Cámara was not going to play along. And the best way to undermine things was to be open about his own case.

  He told Torres about the findings of the autopsy, and how Laura appeared convinced that the husband was guilty. But the interview with him had not gone well – everyone in the Jefatura knew by now about Ruiz Costa vomiting on the chief of the sexual violence squad – and from that afternoon they were looking into a new lead concerning an ex-boyfriend over from the US. A quick search on Webpol confirmed that he was still in the country, but a trawl through the hotels and hostels in Valencia had failed to indicate whether he was in the city. They would have to liaise with the consulate and see if anything came up the next day. Laura had perked up when Cámara showed her the email exchanges between Amy and Ryan Cox. Did they have a new suspect? Or had Ruiz Costa seen his wife’s emails and become jealous? By eight o’clock Cámara decided to call it a day and left her in the office still working on it.

  Now he was hungry – he had not eaten properly all day – and the gruesome scenes at the forensic medicine department that morning were long enough in the past for him to contemplate eating something. The bar owner brought him a plate of montaditos – pieces of toast with dried cod and red pepper – as a starter before walking over with a bowl of garlic soup, thick with paprika and chunks of bread, and an egg floating on top. In a few weeks’ time the temperatures would be rising as they moved into high summer, and such heavy, warming food would be off the menu until October at the earliest.

  Torres was not hungry – he had had a heavy lunch. On his own, he insisted, as though underlining the fact that normally he and Cámara shared such a meal on a work day. Cámara ate and waited: would his friend tell him about his own investigation eventually?

  After smoking two cigarettes in silence while Cámara chewed and slurped his way through dinner, Torres coughed and began.

  ‘Oliva’s still alive,’ he said. ‘Or at least he’s not dead. “Alive” might not be the best word to describe him right now. I went back to the hospital to check, but . . .’ He shook his head.

  ‘What are the doctors saying?’ Cámara asked.

  ‘They seemed more hopeful today than yesterday. You get the impression these things change by the hour, though. They’ve managed to stem most of the haemorrhaging, but the guy’s a mess. Who knows if he’ll be able to tell us anything even if he does come round.’

  ‘So what’s been going on?’

  ‘There’s a housing pressure group that specialises in cases like this – in people being kicked out of their homes because of mortgage defaults. They’ve picked up Oliva’s case, want to turn it into a big deal. They’re talking to the media, and they’ve been on to me trying to pick up new info they can use for the campaign.’

  ‘Have you got any?’

  Torres shrugged; it meant yes.

  ‘They’re talking about over a dozen other suicides this year. Usually jumpers. It’s quite common, it seems, to do it from your own balcony. There’s a certain poignancy there, I suppose. They’re about to kick you out so you launch into the great unknown from your own home – the home that the banks are about to repossess.’

  ‘Anyone done it any other way?’

  ‘Non-jumpers? Yeah, there was a couple a month back. In their seventies, they’ve lost everything, so they sit on the sofa together hand in hand and take an overdose. And that’s where they found them. Then there was another guy who threw himself in front of a commuter train. But he had a ground-floor flat, so throwing himself out the window wasn’t really an option. Well, it was an option, b
ut at best he would have sprained his ankle a bit.’

  ‘So as far as these people are concerned, Oliva is just one more suicide to add to their list.’

  Torres nodded.

  ‘They’ve been kicking up a fuss about it all day. Thought we might see them here tonight, in fact.’ He glanced up the street to the square where the demonstration had taken place the previous night. ‘But perhaps the massed troops of our colleagues up there have put them off.’

  He pulled out another cigarette and lit it as Cámara finished off his dinner.

  ‘It’s a fucking scandal, the whole thing. You know that Caja Levante was funding most of the building that was going on in the boom years, right?’

  ‘Probably. I could have guessed.’

  ‘Get this – ninety per cent of all the money for the new museums and opera houses and Formula One and all the pharaonic wet-dream stuff that’s been built over the past fifteen, twenty years has come from Caja Levante. Emilia would say, I want a hundred million for whatever – a new football stadium – and they would write out the cheques, no questions asked. So they kept lending all this cash, millions and millions of it, and then when everything fell apart they were left with massive debts and almost went bust. Except that the government stepped in and bailed them out at the last minute. With our money.’

  ‘How did they get away with it?’ Cámara asked. ‘Banks are supposed to be good with money, right? Anyone tries to get a loan from them and you have to jump through hoops first.’

  ‘And that’s just small stuff for these guys. But when it comes to vast amounts for new buildings they couldn’t give it away fast enough. It’s because Emilia had her cronies running the bank. They weren’t going to say no to anything.’

  Cámara laughed. ‘It’s so simple. What a great scheme.’

  ‘You know they used to have board meetings in Bali.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Fly everyone out, including husbands and wives. Have a week seeing the sights, relaxing on the beach, then a quick hour-long meeting in the hotel and back home.’

  ‘I love it,’ Cámara said.