Blood Med

by Jason Webster

  ‘They’ll forget it soon enough. They’ll have forgotten it already, what with everything else.’

  ‘Perhaps. But still, communicating directly like that, privately, rather than via email or a report for all to see on Webpol . . . I appreciate it.’

  ‘I’m beginning to think that handwritten notes should be the preferred means of communicating in future,’ Cámara said. ‘No other method seems secure these days.’

  She smiled, as though having picked up some important clue to his character.

  ‘So this link,’ she said.

  ‘Perhaps you could tell me,’ Cámara said, ‘what the results of the tests on Amy’s clothes are.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  She picked up the file sitting squarely in front of her on the desk and handed it over.

  ‘See for yourself. The hairs found on Amy do not belong to Ruiz Costa.’

  ‘Nor are they Amy’s,’ said Cámara, glancing through the report.

  ‘No match on the DNA database.’

  ‘So I see.’

  ‘They could be anyone’s.’

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘But only for the time being.’

  He handed her the file. She placed it back on her desk in exactly the same position it had been before.

  ‘I don’t have it here,’ she said, ‘but I did manage to see the results of another test the científicos were running at the same time as ours.’

  ‘The Oliva case?’

  ‘Inspector Torres is working on it.’

  ‘What did it say?’

  ‘I don’t suppose I’m betraying a confidence here. They gave me the wrong report – Torres’s instead of this one. I’d already read it before I realised the mistake and handed it back.’

  Cámara smiled.

  ‘They were checking the DNA of material found underneath Oliva’s fingernails,’ he said.

  ‘You’re already aware of it, I see. I understand you and Torres are friends.’

  ‘So what did it say? The report?’

  ‘It’s not Oliva’s. Organic material – skin – from two other people. Both male, but again, no match from the database.’

  Cámara threw his head back.

  ‘So there was a struggle,’ he said. ‘He was pushed.’

  ‘Inspector Torres wants to turn it into a murder investigation.’

  Cámara sat up straight.

  ‘But Maldonado is refusing,’ she said.

  She looked down at the desk, drumming her fingers on the file. There was a sense of danger: neither wanted to say another word about it.

  ‘But back to our own case,’ she said. ‘This theory of yours.’

  Cámara took a deep breath and crossed his fingers over his chest.

  ‘As far as I can see,’ she said, ‘we haven’t got much else.’

  Castro was alone in the murder squad offices, her chin resting on her fist as she stared at a computer screen. She looked up as Cámara walked across, a crumpled sheet of printed paper in his hand.

  ‘If you get a moment,’ he said, ‘perhaps you could take a look at this.’

  She took it from him without question and quickly read the violent, threatening text.

  ‘There may be some patterns there – the language used, that kind of thing,’ Cámara said. ‘There’s a database on Webpol somewhere. Not complete, but it might give some indication – in case there’s a match.’

  Castro looked up at him anxiously and nodded.

  ‘Of course,’ she said.

  ‘And then there’s the email address it was sent from. Almost certainly masked in some way, and I’m assuming – if they’re not total idiots – that a proxy server was used. But you never know.’

  ‘I’ll get on to it,’ she said. ‘Can I ask who . . .?’

  ‘My friend,’ Cámara said. ‘My partner. Her name’s Alicia Beneyto.’

  Castro scribbled it down on the paper.

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  He turned to leave.

  ‘It’s probably nothing, but you never know.’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘And if you don’t mind, perhaps you could keep this to yourself.’

  Castro was silent as he closed the door behind him.

  Daniel was away.

  ‘He just left,’ Dídac said. ‘Don’t know where he’s gone. He’ll be back sometime, I suppose.’

  Dídac was on dinner shift along with half a dozen others.

  ‘We’re getting more food than ever now,’ he said. ‘Everyone’s so sad about Hilario they want to give us more. That, and a feeling that a revolution might be just around the corner.’

  Cámara walked across the ticket hall to look for Alicia. The metro station felt subdued that night. It looked as though they had about the same number of people as usual, but the tone had changed subtly. The sense of fun was diminished: there was no music, no sound of children laughing.

  ‘The clown’s not coming back,’ Alicia told him when he mentioned it. ‘Got a chance to do some work in Germany, so he left.’

  ‘Working as a clown?’

  ‘No. I wish. Some cousin in Berlin found him a job at a pizza place, working in the kitchen.’

  Cámara nibbled some of the leftovers on the table. They tasted old, on the verge of going rotten.

  ‘I sometimes wonder myself,’ he said.

  ‘What? About getting an underpaid job as a pizza chef?’

  ‘About getting out. Out of this country.’

  ‘Aren’t we all,’ she said. ‘But not everyone’s got an escape route. Ramón was lucky.’

  ‘Was that his name?’

  ‘He’ll miss the paellas. The real ones.’

  He reached for her waist, pulled her towards him and kissed her.

  ‘If I did ever go,’ he said, ‘I’d want you to come with me.’

  ‘I’d kill you if you left without me.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘But it might be me leaving,’ she said. ‘Then I’d be taking you along with me.’

  ‘I can see this will require some intense negotiation.’

  His hand lowered from her waist for a second and he stroked the top of her hip with his fingertips.

  ‘Did you get much done today?’ he asked.

  ‘I wrote another article. The syndicate want me to file more pieces on the crisis. It seems that foreign newspapers are picking them up.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  He paused.

  ‘Any . . . Any more word from . . .?’

  ‘Oh, that? Nah,’ she said. ‘I’m not . . . I don’t think there’s anything to worry about.’

  She smiled at him; her eyes were tired.

  ‘There’s something I want to show you.’

  She took him by the arm and led him across the ticket hall. Groups of people sat at the tables, finishing off their dinner. Many of them looked up and greeted him as he passed; he recognised faces from the funeral. A hand reached out and grabbed his; he looked down and saw a face he recognised but could not place – a woman with Ecuadorean features.

  ‘The chemist’s,’ she said in answer to the question in his eyes. ‘That night when the men came.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I remember now.’

  ‘You saved us,’ the woman said. ‘My friend and I ran, but we watched from the other street. We saw what you did.’

  She still held his hand, squeezing it affectionately, and smiling at him. But there was a doubt there as well.

  ‘You’re a policeman,’ she said at last.

  Cámara nodded.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So why are you here? Why are you helping us rather than closing this down?’

  Cámara shrugged and smiled.

  ‘He’s a good policeman,’ Alicia said, leaning in to join the conversation. ‘One who knows the true difference between right and wrong.’

  ‘I think perhaps that night you saved my life,’ the woman said.

  And she stood up and
kissed him on the cheek.

  ‘Perhaps we’ll see you here tomorrow,’ Cámara said.

  ‘Tomorrow I’m flying back to Ecuador. I love Spain, but there’s nothing left here for me now. I have no work and I’m frightened. There won’t always be someone like you around.’

  She squeezed his hand again. Alicia led him away.

  ‘If we carry on like this there’ll be no one left at all soon.’

  The candles were arranged in a semicircle on the ground. No one had been able to find a photograph, but someone had attempted a drawing instead. It was not a perfect likeness of his grandfather, but he recognised Hilario immediately.

  ‘A shrine?’ he said.

  ‘A memorial. Of sorts. The children wanted to do it. I couldn’t see any harm.’

  He felt the warmth rising up from the candles and bent down to take a closer look. Several dozen notes had been pinned to the cork board next to the drawing. He reached out and touched them.

  ‘We miss you.’

  ‘Hilario, our hero.’

  ‘We love you, Hilario.’

  He bent his head, tears welling behind his eyes. Alicia crouched down and put her arms around his shoulders.

  ‘It hurts so much,’ he said.

  ‘It hurts so much.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  WHOEVER IT WAS would not be content with leaving a message on voicemail. His phone rang, was cut off, then rang again before being diverted once more. By the third time Cámara decided that it probably needed his attention: the damned thing had woken him already so he might as well climb out of bed.

  Alicia was not there – the television and her computer were both switched off and the flat felt silent and empty.

  Cámara pressed the answer button just before the call was cut off.

  ‘¿Sí?’

  ‘Those night shifts are fucking up your body clock. There’s no reason for it, you know? Avoiding Maldo’s directives isn’t cause enough.’

  Cámara looked down at the screen of his phone to check who the caller was.

  ‘Torres?’

  ‘What’s the matter? Can’t you recognise my voice?’

  ‘I just—’

  ‘Yeah, well. Friends are allowed to have arguments once in a while, aren’t they?’

  ‘Sure. Of course.’

  Cámara sat down. From an open window he could hear the sound of another demonstration: whistles were being blown to the rhythm of several dozen beating drums. A thousand voices chanted slogans that he could not make out.

  The clock on the wall told him it was still only mid-morning. Another day with a minimal amount of sleep. He could feel his head spinning. He needed some coffee – litres of it.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Fancy meeting up?’

  Cámara paused for a second. He needed to wash and dress and his instinct was to tell Torres to pop round to his flat. Torres had not seen his new home, and he was the only one who Cámara normally allowed to break the division between police life and ‘real’ life.

  ‘Let’s go to our usual place.’

  ‘La Serenita?’

  ‘Yeah. Give me half an hour.’

  Almost an hour later they were sitting outside at their usual table. The sun was warm but tolerable and a cooling breeze blew in from the direction of the sea. Torres was dressed in his uniform.

  ‘My favourite time of year,’ he said, putting down his café con leche. ‘Not too hot, not too cold. Just right.’

  Cámara was eating a late breakfast: a sandwich of jamón serrano and tomato with three coffees lined up in a row, a full sachet of sugar already poured into each one and stirred.

  ‘I’ve often wondered how you cope in the summer with that beard of yours. I’d be desperate to shave it off come June every year.’

  ‘It’s a cross I’m prepared to bear.’

  When Cámara had finished eating they smoked in silence for a few minutes. Another demonstration could be heard some way on the other side of the city centre. Down the street, at the entrance to the square, two riot squad men stood with their arms crossed and legs wide apart, a vanguard for the expected trouble to come.

  Torres lifted his hand, cigarette stuck between his fingers, and saluted them.

  ‘¡Viva la revolución!’ he growled.

  Cámara flicked his ash on the floor, waiting.

  ‘Chief,’ Torres began. Chief – it was his usual, sarcastic and affectionate manner of addressing Cámara, but it felt like an age since he had last used it. ‘Chief, this Oliva case. I’ve got to tell you the truth. I’m—’

  ‘I picked up some new information recently about Felicidad Galván,’ Cámara said.

  Over the next few minutes he outlined what he had heard from Berto about Caja Levante and the slush fund that Oliva’s former boss was said to run. Cámara did not mention his source; it was irrelevant and might cloud things. The important thing was for Torres to be made aware of what he had discovered.

  Torres nodded as Cámara spoke. He had hit a wall with his investigation – first the hint of a connection with the Amy Donahue case and then the death of Oliva. Now he was turning to the only person who could help him – the same person he was also, now, in competition with. The fact hung between them.

  ‘You were right,’ Cámara said when he had filled Torres in. ‘I shouldn’t have got involved in your case. But I thought you might want to know about this. It might be worth talking to Felicidad Galván herself.’

  Torres’s black eyes sparkled.

  ‘The Caja Levante office isn’t far from here,’ he said.

  Cámara threw his cigarette butt on the floor and ground it out slowly with the ball of his foot. The invitation was clear: a chance to work together as a team again. The special Homicidios partnership in operation once more. Fuck Maldonado. This is what they should have been doing from the start.

  ‘I need a piss,’ he said.

  He stood up, went inside and paid before Torres could say anything.

  ‘Reckon I should be on my guard again?’ the bar owner asked as he took the money. Cámara patted his pocket: he would soon be running out of cash.

  ‘The riot police are back. Saw them streaming past an hour ago. Someone mentioned another demo. I tell you, this part of town’s in danger of turning into a battle zone. Some of us have to make a living.’

  Cámara sniffed the air, as though trying to gauge the level of danger.

  ‘I’d be ready to close up quickly if I were you,’ he said. ‘It’s unpredictable times.’

  Outside, Torres was finishing the last of his coffee. He looked up at Cámara, the question still present in his eyes.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Cámara said. ‘But let’s take the long way round. Those guys with truncheons up there bring out the worst in me.’

  Torres got up and smiled.

  ‘How the fuck you ever became a policeman is a complete mystery to me.’

  ‘I could say the same about you.’

  ‘By the way,’ Torres said as they turned and walked in the opposite direction to the square. ‘Oliva’s death. It had nothing to do with the drug they gave him.’

  ‘The zolpidem.’

  ‘That’s right. He got an infection. His body was too weak to fight it off. And he slipped away. Thought you’d want to know.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  It was clear now what the demonstration was about.

  The Caja Levante building took up a whole block in Valencia’s small financial district. It was a relatively modern structure – built some time in the 1970s, and although not quite an eyesore it was not exactly attractive either. Cámara had passed it a thousand times, aware of its presence but never taking much notice. Now it was interesting because of the large crowd crammed around the entrance and streaming up the street in both directions, cutting off the traffic. Police on horseback were gathered at one end, near the Plaza del Ayuntamiento, while the heavily armoured vans of the riot squad were parked in a tight line, creating a wall of dark blue ste
el between the seat of finance and that of local government. So far it looked as though the protesters were being allowed to carry on. Members of the Policía Local had been drafted in to divert traffic away.

  There was no need to ask why the demonstrators were there. Before the corralito there had been a general, background anger at the way bankers appeared to have got away with so much as the country’s economy began to suffer. Now, however, ordinary people were being affected in a very direct way: after so many years of theft and corruption at high level they no longer had access to their own money.

  Cámara and Torres pushed their way through, making slow progress as they tried to approach the entrance. Torres took off his cap, aware that being dressed in uniform in this environment might cause problems.

  ‘Just tell them you’ve lost all your savings,’ Cámara called back to him. It was hard to make themselves heard against the noise of the demonstration.

  ‘What savings?’ Torres said.

  The crowds at the front were too tight to get through, and for a moment they wondered about calling off their visit.

  ‘Come back tomorrow?’ Torres said.

  ‘The place might not be here tomorrow,’ Cámara said. ‘This lot look like they might burn it down.’

  ‘Let’s try round the side.’

  The crowds were almost as large and dense at the side of the building, but at least they could force their way through. Some protestors tried to prevent them when they saw Torres’s uniform; others did their best to get out of the way.

  The men at the door – armed with pistols and truncheons and dressed in a green uniform – were from a private security firm.

  ‘We’re from the Jefatura,’ Cámara said, waving his card. ‘The board has called us in to coordinate efforts.’

  ‘Thank God for that,’ said one of the guards, letting them through.

  ‘Don’t know how much longer we can hold out on our own,’ said the other. ‘Whatever you decide just make it quick, will you?’

  Executives in any organisation were always on the higher floors – it was a natural law. Cámara headed straight for the lift and pushed the top button.