by Antonio Hill
“Héctor, I’ve been informing Señora Vidal of your inquiries.” Savall’s tone was smooth, conciliatory, with a hint of warning. “But I think it’s better for you to tell her yourself.”
Héctor took a few seconds before speaking. He knew what the superintendent was asking of him: a neutral, friendly tale, and at the same time persuasive, which might convince this woman that her son had fallen from the window. The same argument a teacher would use with a pupil who has failed by one point: you can walk with your head held high, it is a worthy failure, come back in September and I’m sure you’ll pass. In Joana Vidal’s case, better to go and not come back. But at the same time, something told him that this woman, legs still crossed and clutching the arms of the chair tightly, was keeping an ace up her sleeve. A bomb she’d drop at the opportune moment, which would catch them all unawares, not knowing what to say.
“Of course,” he said at last, and fell silent again to weigh his words. “But first perhaps Señora Vidal has something to tell us as well.”
The woman’s quick glance told him he’d hit the nail on the head. Savall raised his eyebrows.
“Is that so, Joana?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. Perhaps. But first I want to hear what Inspector Salgado has to tell me.”
“Fine.” Now yes, thought Héctor, noting that the woman sitting beside him was relaxing a little. He moved his chair to see her face and spoke to her directly, as if the super wasn’t in the room. “From what we know, the night of the festival of San Juan your son and two of his friends, Aleix Rovira and Gina Martí, had a little party in Marc’s attic. The kids’ stories generally match: the party seemed to develop normally, until for some reason Marc’s mood changed, he turned off the music and argued with Aleix when he accused him of coming back very much changed from Dublin. Aleix went home, but Gina, who was rather drunk, stayed over in Marc’s room. His anger had affected her as well, and as soon as Aleix left he sent her to bed, telling her she was drunk, which annoyed the girl. Then she lay down and fell asleep immediately. For his part, Marc stayed alone in the attic and did as he usually did: smoked a last cigarette sitting on the window sill.”
He stopped there, although this woman’s face showed only concentration. Not sorrow or pain. There was something Nordic about Joana Vidal’s features, an apparent coldness that might or might not be a mask. It was, thought Héctor; but it was a mask that had been in place for a long time and was beginning to merge with the original features. Only her eyes, an even dark chestnut color, seemed to contradict it; they hid a sparkle that, in the right circumstances, could be dangerous. Unable to help it, he mentally compared Joana to Enric Castells’ second wife and told himself there was a superficial likeness, a pallor common to both women; however, the similarities ended there. In Glòria’s eyes there was doubt, insecurity, even obedience; Joana’s hinted at rebellion and challenge. There was no doubt that Castells hadn’t wanted to run the same risk twice and had chosen a softer, more docile woman. More manageable. Héctor Salgado told himself that the woman in front of him deserved to know the truth and went on in the same tone, ignoring the expression of impatience coming over the super’s face.
“But the kids are lying, at least partly. I’m not saying they had anything to do with what happened,” he clarified. “Only that there’s a part of the story they’ve smoothed over, if I might put it that way.” He went on to refer to what Castro had discovered on seeing the photos on Gina’s Facebook profile, as well as the finding of the T-shirt Marc was wearing during the party: clean but with some stains that might well be blood. “So the next step is to question Aleix Rovira closely’—he said this without looking at Savall—“because the alleged fight they’ve told us about may have been somewhat more violent than the story suggests. And speak to Aleix’s brother to confirm once again that the boy arrived home and didn’t go back out. Honestly, I think that is the most likely thing. Perhaps that’s all that happened, a fight between friends, nothing too serious but enough for Marc to stain his T-shirt and change his clothes. A fight that maybe caused Marc’s laptop to fall to the floor and break . . .”
He remained thoughtful. Why hadn’t Gina said anything about the broken laptop? Even if it was a matter of a simple argument, as she said, it was less suspicious to tell them something they would find out anyway. He forced himself to slow down: his thoughts were moving too quickly and he should continue. “It doesn’t change what happened afterward,” he said, but his voice didn’t sound too convincing. “Only that we need some pieces to complete the picture. For the moment we’ve taken Marc’s laptop and mobile to see what we can extract from them. And we should question Aleix Rovira again.” Then he did look at the super. He was pleased to see he was nodding, although with a bad grace. “And now, is there something you wish to tell us, Señora Vidal?”
Joana uncrossed her legs and searched in her bag until she pulled out some folded pages. She kept them in her hand as she spoke, as if she didn’t want to part with them.
“A few months ago, Marc got in contact with me by email.” It was difficult for her to say it. She cleared her throat and threw her head back: she had a long, white neck. “As you must already know, we hadn’t seen each other since I left, eighteen years ago. So it was a complete surprise when I received his first message.”
“How did he get your address?” asked the super.
“Fèlix, Enric’s brother, gave it to him. It may seem strange to you, but we’ve kept in touch all this time. With my exbrother-in-law, I mean. Do you know him?” she asked, turning to Héctor.
“Yes, I saw him yesterday at your ex’s house. He seemed to love his nephew very much.”
She nodded.
“Well, Enric is a busy man.” She shook her head. “No, I have no right to criticize him. I’m sure he did everything he could . . . but Fèlix has no family other than that of his brother and he’s always worried a lot about Marc. Either way, the fact is I received an email at the beginning of the year. From . . . my son.” It was the first time she’d said it and it hadn’t been easy for her. “I was very surprised. Of course something like that could have happened at any time, but the truth is I wasn’t expecting it. You never expect it.”
Silence fell, which Savall and Héctor dared not break. She did.
“At the beginning I didn’t know how to answer him, but he persisted. He sent me two or three more emails and I couldn’t refuse any longer, so we started to write to each other. I know it sounds strange, I can’t deny it. A mother and her son, who have practically never seen each other, communicating by email.” She flashed a bitter smile at them, as if she were challenging them to make the smallest comment. Neither of them opened their mouths. She continued: “I was afraid of the questions, reproaches even, but there were none. Marc just told me things about his life in Dublin, his plans. It was as if we’d just met, as if I wasn’t his mother. The correspondence continued for about three months, until . . .” She was quiet for a few moments and looked away. “Until he suggested coming to see me in Paris.” She lowered her eyes to the pages she had in her hand. “The idea terrified me,” she said simply. “I don’t know why. I said I had to think about it.”
“And he got angry?” asked Héctor.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“I suppose it was a rude awakening. From then on his emails became less and less frequent until he almost stopped writing. But toward the end of his stay in Ireland he sent me this email.”
She unfolded the pages, chose one and gave it to Savall. He read it and then passed the sheet to Héctor. The text read:
Hello, I know it’s been a long time since I gave any signs of life, and I won’t insist on us seeing each other, at least for the moment. In fact, I have to return to Barcelona to sort out some unfinished business. I don’t even know how to do it, but I know I have to try. When all this is over, I’d like us to meet. In Paris or Barcelona, wherever you like.
A kiss,
Marc
Héct
or lifted his eyes from the page and Joana answered his question before he had even formed it.
“No, I have no idea to what business he’s referring. At the time, I thought it must be something to do with studying, focusing on a degree or something like that. The truth is, I didn’t place that much importance on it until yesterday afternoon. I started reading all the emails, one after the other, like it was a real conversation. This is the last one I received from him.” Héctor and Superintendent Savall exchanged glances. There was little to say. That message could refer to anything, and nothing.
“I know this may seem a little far-fetched, but I don’t know . . . maybe it’s something else, maybe it has something to do with his death.” Her hands moved restlessly, more out of impatience than sorrow, and she stood up. “Well, I suppose it’s just foolishness on my part.”
“Joana.” Savall stood up as well and walked around the table to her. “Nothing is foolish in an investigation. I told you we’d get to the bottom of this and so we will. But you must understand, accept, that perhaps the obvious explanation is what really happened. Accidents are difficult to come to terms with, and yet they happen.”
Joana nodded, although Héctor had the feeling that wasn’t what was worrying her. Or at least not only that. She must have been a very pretty woman, and she still was in a way, he thought. Elegant and stylish, although her face showed a glimpse of the passing of the years which she did nothing to disguise. No make-up, or operations. Joana Vidal accepted maturity in a natural way and the result was a dignity lacking in other faces of her age. He watched her, taking advantage of the fact that she seemed absorbed in what the super was saying to her.
“We’ll keep you informed. Personally. Inspector Salgado or myself, I promise you. Try to relax.”
Savall offered to see her to the door, but she refused, with the same impatient gesture that Héctor had noticed a few minutes before. She couldn’t be an easy woman, of that he was sure, and as he watched her walk away the image of Meryl Streep came to mind. The figure of Leire Castro, who’d approached as soon as Joana Vidal emerged, brought him back to reality.
“Do you have a moment, Inspector?”
“Yes, but if I’m honest I need a cigarette. Do you smoke?” he asked her for the first time.
“More than I should and less than I feel like.”
He smiled.
“Well, now you will on your superior’s order.”
Without knowing why, Leire continued the game. “I’ve been asked to do worse.”
He raised his hands in a gesture of mock innocence.
“I don’t believe you . . . Let’s go and contaminate the air in the street and you can tell me about it.”
They managed to find a corner in the shade, although shade in Barcelona is a false refuge. The midday sun was beating down on the city and the humidity increased the temperature to African levels.
“That was Marc’s mother, wasn’t it?” she asked.
“Yes.” He took a long drag and blew the smoke out, slowly. “Tell me, was there anything on the laptop or mobile?”
She nodded.
“We’re investigating the numbers, although the majority of calls and texts in the days before his death are to Gina Martí and Aleix Rovira. And some Iris, although in her case they are basically WhatsApps.” He showed his discomfort, and she explained what she was talking about. “It’s free, and by the prefix we know this girl was in Ireland. In Dublin, I suppose. They spoke very little English—the girl must be Spanish—and from what I’ve read, Marc was crazy about her. I’ve transcribed all the messages to see if there’s anything, but at first glance they seem normal: I miss you, wish you were here. I think they were planning to see each other because there’s some reference to ‘soon this will all be over’.” She smiled. “All with very unromantic abbreviations, to tell the truth. With regard to the laptop, they’re trying to repair it but they told me it’s pretty wrecked. As if it was broken on purpose.”
“Yeah.” The laptop worried him. He was going to voice his doubts out loud, but Leire didn’t let him.
“There’s something else I realized last night at home.” Her eyes shone, and Héctor noticed for the first time that they were dark green, at least in the sun. “There’s no way to sleep in this heat, so I went out on to the terrace to smoke a cigarette. I forgot the ashtray and ended up stubbing it out on the terrace, thinking I’d pick it up later. I know, it’s not very hygienic. Then, when I was in bed it occurred to me. What would you do if you were going to smoke a cigarette sitting at the window?”
He thought for a second.
“Well, I’d either flick the ash into the air or I’d bring an ashtray and have it nearby: beside me or even in my hand.”
“Exactly. And from what the cleaner told me, Glòria Vergès is obsessive about cleaning. She can’t stand smoke, or cigarette butts. I suppose that’s why the boy smoked at the window.” She paused briefly before continuing. “The butt wasn’t on the ground, at least not below the window, when we processed the scene. Yes, he could have thrown it further, but I can’t imagine Marc dirtying the garden anyway. The most logical thing was that he brought the ashtray to the window to save him the bother. But it wasn’t there. It was inside, I remember perfectly, on the shelf beside the window. I think it even appears in some of the photos we took.”
Héctor’s brain was working at full speed, despite the heat.
“It means Marc put out his cigarette and came back in.”
“I thought that. I’ve been mulling it over and it’s nothing definitive. He could easily have smoked, come in and then returned to the window. But according to what we’ve been told, it wasn’t something he usually did. I mean the idea we’ve been sold is that Marc used to sit at the window to smoke. That’s it. Not to think, not to kill time.”
“There’s another possibility,” he rebutted. “Someone might have brought in the ashtray from the window.”
“Yes, I thought of that as well. But the cleaner had to take care of Gina Martí, who had a nervous fit when she woke up; she didn’t go up to the attic before we got there. Señor Castells arrived with his brother, the priest, at the same time as us; his wife and daughter came down afterward; Glòria Vergès didn’t want her daughter to see the body, which is logical, so she stayed in the Collbató chalet until the afternoon.”
“Are you sure Gina didn’t go back into the attic in the morning?”
“According to her statement, she didn’t. The cleaner’s screams woke her and she ran downstairs to the door. Seeing Marc dead brought on a nervous fit and the woman had to make her a herbal tea, which she didn’t drink. Then we arrived. And I can’t see her taking the ashtray from the window and putting it in its place.”
“Let’s see.” Héctor half-closed his eyes. “Let’s imagine the scene: Marc has been hanging out with his friends and the night ends badly. They’ve fought. Badly enough that his t-shirt is bloodstained. Aleix leaves and he sends Gina to bed. It’s almost three a.m. and it’s hot. He changes his dirty t-shirt and before going to bed he does what he always does: smokes a cigarette sitting at the window. We’ll assume that he brought the ashtray—I’m sure he did it out of habit. So he smokes peacefully, stubs out the cigarette, and goes back into the attic: he leaves the ashtray . . .”
“See?” insisted Castro. “It doesn’t fit with the idea that he was drunk and fell accidentally. And also, if he was dizzy, he would have noticed and in that case, why go out?”
Héctor thought of the fear he’d read in Joana Vidal’s eyes just a moment before, of Enric Castells’ words, denying with excessive vehemence that his son might have thrown himself into the void voluntarily. Could it have been a suicide? A desperate outburst, because of something that had happened that night perhaps? Or had someone come in, argued with him and ended up pushing him out of the window? It had to be a relatively strong person, which discounted Gina. Aleix? Had they fought, and the broken computer was the result? Leire seemed to follow his reasoning as
her eyes were sparkling.
“I did something else,” she said. “This morning I called the Faculty of Computer Science, where Aleix Rovira studies. It wasn’t easy, but in the end they told me: he hasn’t passed a single subject; in fact he’s practically not attended classes since Easter.”
“Wasn’t he some kind of child prodigy?”
“Well, it seems he lost his superpowers when he went to university.”
“Check his calls. I want to know everything about Rovira: who he calls, where he goes, what he usually says, what he does in his spare time, which must be plentiful if he’s not attending class. I get the impression these two brats are playing with us. I’ll call him into the station on Monday so he’ll have to sweat a little. Any problem?”
Leire shook her head, although her expression wasn’t nearly as certain. In fact, that evening she had to collect Tomás from Sants station, and in theory she was off this weekend. She was going to say so out loud when she thought having something to do might not be a bad idea.
“No problem, Inspector.”
“Great. Another thing: Marc wrote to his mother saying he had something he had to sort out here. I don’t think it’s important but—”
“But in this case we’re going along blindly, don’t you think?”
“Completely blind.” He remembered what Savall had said to him and added, unable to avoid a slightly ironic tone, “And don’t forget all this is ‘unofficial.’ I’ll talk to the superintendent. I want to get all possible information on Aleix Rovira together before Monday. Take care of it; I’ll look after interrogating Óscar Vaquero.”
She seemed taken aback.
“The fatty they played the trick on. Yes, I know it was a couple of years ago, but sometimes grudges don’t disappear with time, more like the opposite.” A cynical smile spread over his face. “I assure you.”
17
The air conditioning in that sorry room made an infernal noise. With the curtains—stiff pieces of a moss-green fabric—pulled to block out the blazing sun falling on the city at that hour, the drone of the machine resembled the labored roar of a beast from the underworld. It could have been a roadside motel, one of those establishments that, despite their sordidness, radiate romance or at least sensuality. Rooms that smell of sweaty sheets and intertwined bodies, of furtive but inevitable sex, of desires never fully satiated, of quick showers and cheap cologne. In reality, it wasn’t a motel but a pensión near Plaça Universitat, discreet and even clean if you looked at it with a favorable eye—or, better still, didn’t look at it too much at all—specializing in renting rooms by the hour. Given the proximity to the Gayxample, the gay area par excellence of Barcelona, the majority of the clientele were homosexual, something that in a way was reassuring to Regina. In the seven months of this year so far she’d come more or less regularly to this pensión without ever bumping into anyone she knew. The worst was going in and coming out, but up to now she’d been lucky. Certainly because deep down she couldn’t care less. Not that she and Salvador had an explicitly open relationship, but it had to be more or less obvious to her husband that if he wasn’t making love to her, someone else would have to take his place in bed at least once in a while.
