by Chris Lloyd
She saw Montse grimace under the glare of the street lights as they crossed the river. Quickly glancing the other way, she saw the river flowing heavily under the seventeenth-century bridge, built to replace an earlier one washed away by flood. She shook her head in wonder. Usually, there was just the merest trickle of water over a riverbed rich in grass, but the rain in the mountains was driving torrents through the towns even though little rain was actually falling in them.
Vulpellac was just a few more minutes past La Bisbal, and Montse slowed to turn into the little hamlet. A Seguretat Ciutadana car was just stopping outside Bofarull’s house when she and Elisenda got there. A uniformed caporala got out and rang the doorbell, turning with a questioning look at Elisenda and Montse as they approached her. Elisenda introduced herself and showed the caporala her ID.
‘Is this the first time a patrol’s been out here?’ Elisenda asked.
The caporala nodded and rang the doorbell again. ‘We’ve had an incident on the Palamós road that’s taken up a lot of our resources. A lorry hit a car. We’re the first to be able to get here.’
‘There’s no one answering,’ Elisenda said, so the caporala banged on the door with her fist, but it made little noise on the heavy wood. Her cap wobbled on her hair with the effort, dark and long and tightly-packed in a bun underneath it.
‘Reinforced,’ Elisenda commented, looking closely at it by the weak light of a street lamp. The lock was a heavy-duty one, the frame made of steel coated to look like wood. Bofarull really didn’t want anyone to get in. Or out.
‘I’ll check the neighbours,’ the caporala said.
She was joined by her companion, a caporal with a shaved head under his cap and a stylish little moustache and goatee. Elisenda couldn’t help thinking they’d been teamed up because they were a tonsorial match for each other. Each one took the house either side, and each one came away without getting an answer. They tried another couple of doors opposite, but got no luck there either, so they returned to Bofarull’s house. Elisenda took one more look at the lock and realised that not even Siset’s training in door-cracking was going to open it.
‘Best get at it with a ram,’ she told the two uniforms. ‘It’s not going to open itself.’
They looked at each other uncertainly. ‘We don’t have cause to break in,’ the caporal said.
‘It’s all right. We have a warrant. It’s on its way.’
Elisenda turned to Montse and pulled a face to say she hoped one was on its way. Just in case, she rang Josep again while the two Seguretat Ciutadana went to the boot of their patrol car. He called back ten minutes later, when Montse was taking a turn at battering at the stubborn door.
‘Got the warrant,’ he told her.
‘Good. You’d better get here.’
A neighbour from the end of the street came out to see what the racket was, clutching a cotton housecoat around her shoulders. Elisenda asked her if she’d seen anything suspicious or any movement at the house.
‘Only you lot,’ the woman told her huffily and went back indoors.
It was only after Josep had arrived and all five of them had taken turns with the ram that the door finally gave in and slowly swung backwards, heavy on its hinges. The lights inside were off. Elisenda went first and flipped the switch. It came on, revealing the small anteroom typical of a house this age. It would once have been for the animals, but was now a windowless space too big for a hall and too dark for a sitting room. She had the unbidden thought that no one ever knew what to do with them. Bofarull was evidently no different as there was just a table and two upright chairs and nothing else. She sent Josep and the caporal up the stairs to the right, while she and the other two crossed into the downstairs rooms at the rear.
The first thing she noticed in the living room was that the large LED television she’d noticed the other day had gone. Looking around, she saw too that a sound system of speakers and dock that had been on a shelf by the TV was also missing. She couldn’t remember enough from her last visit to know if that was all. Montse overtook her to go into the kitchen, through a door to the rear of the room they were in. Taking one last look around, Elisenda followed her and the caporal. She could see nothing that appeared to be missing, but a glass lay broken on the floor. Elisenda crouched down by the glass. It lay in a small puddle of water, but nothing else on the tiles gave any hint as to what might have happened. Montse tried the handle on the door out into the back garden, but it was locked.
The uniformed caporal suddenly made a shushing noise and held his finger up, looking into space as he listened. Elisenda heard it too. A dripping noise. It was very faint. There were long gaps between each sound and she found herself holding her breath until the next drop fell. Her two companions scanned the kitchen looking for the source, but Elisenda was drawn inexorably to the cellar door. It was open, a crack showing between the door and the frame.
Crossing the kitchen, she slowly pulled it open fully and waited. The first sound of a drip had grown in volume. It was coming from below, down the narrow flight of stone steps. The light was already on and she signalled to the other two to follow her. As she descended, she listened out for any other noise that would indicate what she might find in the cellar. She had expected the air to be musty, but it was surprisingly fresh, the temperature a few degrees cooler than in the upstairs rooms. As she descended further, a smell began to pervade her nose, getting stronger the deeper she went. She began to feel light-headed with it. The strong scent of red wine. Filling her nostrils, intoxicating her.
At the bottom of the stairs, to the left, there was a cage, its bars heavy. A door to it gaped open. Shocked, she stopped a brief moment to gather herself before pulling her gun out of its holster, where she’d placed it on her waist. Exhaling slowly and trying to shake the growing headiness that was engulfing her, she pressed on, walking quietly across the cement floor, the dust making light scratching noises under her shoes. The dripping continued, amplified in the enclosed space.
Reaching the gate, she looked left, where the cellar seemed to open out. The walls were lined with shelves, each one stacked with bottles. The necks of the bottles were face-out, pointing to the centre of the room.
Pointing to the ancient and stained wooden table and two upright chairs in the middle of the open space.
Pointing to the body that lay on its back on the table.
Another smell reached Elisenda’s nose.
Chapter Forty-Six
‘Waterboarded,’ Albert Riera, the pathologist told Elisenda. ‘With his own wine.’
From the edge of the cage, Elisenda watched Riera at work. The smell of the wine that had been poured over the dead man lying face-up on the table was overpowering. It was still making her feel light-headed over an hour since finding the body. She and the Científica forensic team scanning the cellar had had to keep taking turns outside in the fresh air. At least two dozen empty wine bottles were on the floor, some intact, many shattered where the attacker had simply thrown them to the ground. The wine had been poured onto the man’s face, over a tea-towel that had been placed over his head. What liquid hadn’t been forced into his mouth and nose had cascaded down and collected in a pool on the modern stone floor tiles, spreading across the large room in a gridiron along the joins.
‘His own wine?’ Elisenda questioned absently, although she knew whose face to expect under the thin material. When she’d discovered the body, she hadn’t removed the towel before Científica and Riera had had a chance to get what they could from the scene, but Montse had recognised the clothes he was wearing.
‘Someone’s wine,’ Riera replied irritably. From her distance, Elisenda could see his eyes streaming from the fumes. His mouth and nose were covered in a sterile mask, concealing the salt-and-pepper goatee and moustache that made him look like an old-fashioned grandee.
Carefully, he folded back the drenched tea-towel and handed it to his assistant to bag it. Elisenda moved forward gingerly over the pads set down by Científi
ca and craned over to see the man’s face.
‘Francesc Bofarull,’ she confirmed.
The source of the other smell she’d noticed became apparent, as the campaign manager’s mouth and nose were encrusted in vomit from where he’d struggled to breathe as he was drowning in wine.
‘Would that be the cause of death?’ she asked Riera.
He looked up at her and she saw the annoyance in his eyes. It was nothing new. At least he was reining in his usual foul language.
‘You know it’s far too early to say. I’ll let you know. Now fuck off back to where you were and let me get on with my work.’
Elisenda smiled at him and leaned forward. ‘You know that doesn’t work with me, Albert, so don’t push it.’
He stared back at her for a few seconds, before mumbling what was probably an apology. His assistant looked surprised and flashed a quick conspiratorial roll of the eyes at Elisenda. Contrition famously didn’t come easily to the pathologist.
Elisenda retraced her steps to the door of the cage, wondering once again at the structure. Her initial reaction had been that it had some sinister motive, but she quickly realised that it was simply extra security for the wine. The metal construction took up most of the room and was filled with row upon row of bottles. Bofarull had been telling the truth when he’d told her that he kept wine in the cellar.
‘How many people would it have taken to do this?’ she called to Riera. ‘Could one person have done it?’
Riera stood up and stretched his back to consider. Bofarull’s legs had been strapped to the table with a length of rope. More rope was stacked with some tools in another part of the cellar, outside the cage, so the attacker had most probably used it opportunely.
‘He would have been immobile from the waist down,’ Riera said. ‘But they’d have had to have held his upper body down. Possibly by sitting on him. Maybe with one hand if they were strong enough or the angle was right. I’ll be able to tell you more about that when he’s back at the forensic institute, if there’s any bruising on the chest. I should say it’s possible, but it would be easier with more than one person doing it.’
Elisenda took in his words. She had to consider Pere Vergés as the prime suspect for the murder, but she was trying to reconcile the descriptions she’d heard of the man with the scene before her. It bore too many of the hallmarks of the gang attacking houses, even though Bofarull’s home wasn’t as isolated as their usual targets. The atmosphere in the cellar was becoming unbearable. The Científica team had already taken a break while she’d been talking to Riera.
‘I’m going upstairs,’ she told the pathologist.
Riera looked up, his face red. ‘I think we’ll join you.’
As they carefully moved away from the table and out of the cage, the Científica team came back down the narrow steps.
‘Stay away from the body,’ Riera warned them.
The leader watched him go and mouthed “prick” at Elisenda. She shrugged and asked him to check the dimensions of the cellar compared with the upstairs.
‘Any discrepancy in size,’ she explained. ‘Any hidden partition or door in the wall or floor. We need to check in case there’s somewhere we’re not seeing where something or someone could be kept.’
The leader nodded and pulled his mask up. He had sleepy eyes that were accentuated when they were the only feature showing, but he was one of the sharpest members of the forensic team. Elisenda was glad he was on duty.
Out of the cloying atmosphere of the cellar, another Científica told her that the other two members of her team were in the victim’s office on the top floor. She climbed the stairs and found Montse and Josep with two forensic cops going through the room. All the state-of-the-art computer equipment she’d seen the other day had been taken. The framed article she’d noticed was still on the wall. Josep stood next to her as she looked at it.
‘Did that prove to be his downfall?’ he asked.
‘Sometimes it doesn’t pay to advertise,’ she commented. ‘If this is just a burglary gone wrong, that is.’
‘I’ve got hold of Àlex,’ Montse told her. ‘They were out in La Fosca with no signal and then they were delayed by some road accident. They’re on their way here.’
Elisenda thanked her and waved her hand around the room. ‘So what’s our take on this? A robbery gone too far or a revenge killing? Is it a genuine burglary or faked to look like one?’
Montse sucked in her breath. ‘If the reason were the murder downstairs, would the killer really go to the bother of taking everything? They might take something to make it look like a robbery, but I don’t see that they’d take everything. That would take a lot of cool-headedness. Especially after killing someone like that.’ She pointed down at the ground, indicating the cellar.
Elisenda sighed. ‘My thoughts precisely. This looks too similar to the house robberies to be anything else, but Vergés has to be a suspect too.’ She recalled the victim lying bound to the table. ’But does it tie in with what we know about him?’
‘He was innocent and he spent four years in prison,’ Josep commented. ‘That’s more than enough time to make someone change.’
‘And his loss of faith,’ Montse conceded. ‘That and a sense of injustice.’
‘But would it lead to him doing this?’ Elisenda asked. ‘And to taking Jaume?’
‘I think it could,’ Josep said. ‘Although I agree he’d have to be pretty calculating to do all of this to cover it up.’
Elisenda turned to go back downstairs. ‘We can’t rule it out,’ she had to agree. ‘But I would like to know more about his relationship with Miravent and Comas. If he did do this and he has taken the boy, they have to know more than they’re saying.’ She turned back to the two caporals. ‘Check up on their house, make sure they’re both there, make sure the protection is in place. If this is Vergés, they’re at greater risk.’
Once more in the cellar, she saw that Riera and his assistant were already back at work. The Científica she’d spoken to before leaving told her that they’d found nothing unusual about the room so far.
‘Fucking Philistines,’ she heard Riera mutter.
She turned to see him holding one of the empty bottles.
‘Why’s that?’ she asked, curious.
He gestured at the walls around him. ‘I don’t know what these people think they stole with the computers, but this is where the money is.’
He moved back from Bofarull’s body and beckoned her to one of the shelves. Taking his glove off, he pulled a bottle off the wall.
‘Vega Sicilia Único 1964. About six hundred euros a bottle. Two whole shelves of them.’ He moved along to another shelf and took another bottle. His movements were almost reverent. ‘And this is also a Vega Sicilia Único. But from 1936. That’s about a thousand euros a bottle.’
Elisenda looked along the wall. She counted at least five dozen of the dust-caked bottles, just from what she could see.
‘There’s a fortune here,’ she whispered.
Riera gazed around. ‘Hence the cage. There’s got to be millions’ worth here.’
She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘And where would the money for that come from?’
She heard her name being called from the direction of the staircase. It was Àlex, peering down into the cellar.
‘Nightmare on the roads,’ he told her when she went to join him. ‘We’ve been checking out La Fosca with the local station. All the occupied houses had leaflets, but we couldn’t find any symbols anywhere. They don’t seem to have singled anywhere out for an attack.’
‘We’re going to have to find a way to anticipate their next step,’ Elisenda told him. She rubbed her forehead, tired from the overpowering wine fumes and the enormity of the two investigations facing them.
‘There’s something else you need to see,’ he told her, gesturing for her to follow him.
He took her outside to the front of the house, where Manel was waiting, and pointed to the metal shutter over
the niche set into the wall where the meters were kept. In the bottom corner, barely visible in the light from the street lamp, was a symbol. A triangle with three lines jutting out of the top.
‘Which makes it a robbery,’ she murmured.
‘Only one thing,’ Àlex commented. ‘There’s no line through the triangle. If this were the gang, they’d have marked it as job done.’
Chapter Forty-Seven
It was late by the time Elisenda got back to Girona.
Bofarull’s body had finally been taken to the city’s Institut de Medicina Legal. At that time of night, no judge or court secretary had come out to the scene to authorise the removal of the body as the law required. Instead, as so often happened in practice, they’d delegated that task to Riera as pathologist. He and Elisenda had been among the last to leave. She’d sent her own team off earlier in two cars, while she’d taken the third so that she could drive back to the city alone with her thoughts.
But before that, she’d had one more task to do. Crossing the small hamlet where Bofarull had lived, she went to see his parents. This was never easy, but telling an elderly couple that their one child had died before them, murdered just a few streets away, was one of the hardest experiences she’d ever known. She’d been able to do little but watch the two people hold on to each other and try to understand. At their neighbour’s suggestion, she’d called their nephew, who also lived in Vulpellac, and she waited with them until he came. Completely different from his cousin, the man had hugged the couple warmly and told Elisenda it was all right for her to leave.
Entering Girona, she couldn’t help being drawn by the lights under the trees of the Devesa, growing weaker in intensity as they reached for reflection in the tall branches towering high above them. On impulse, she parked nearby and walked into the park again. She immediately felt the chill of recollection of a member of her team dying so grotesquely in the shadows, his body staged as cruelly as Bofarull’s had been in the cellar of his own home. She stopped and steeled herself, forcing herself to continue. Inhaling deeply, she set off again to be swallowed by the lights and noise of the traders and re-enactors camping like excitable schoolchildren just metres from air-conditioned homes and restaurants.
