by Antonio Hill
The sergeant was going to say something, but the call was
ended before she could do so. She grabbed her bag and left the
station. With a bit of luck, she’d at least get to pick up the kids.
The afternoon was also proving fruitful for Leire Castro. Before her, she had a record of Aleix Rovira’s telephone activity for the last two months, and the list was interesting, not solely because of the extremely high number of calls. With the list on the table she was noting the numbers that occurred most often, which, given the intensity of this mobile’s communications, was no easy task. The most curious were those at the weekend: throughout the day, and for a large part of the night, Aleix’s mobile received brief calls, barely seconds long. There were other numbers that occurred quite frequently. Leire wrote them down, ready to find out to whom they belonged. One of them had called various times, ten to be exact, on the night of 23 June. Aleix hadn’t answered any of them, but he did contact that number the following day. A four-minute conversation. It was the only call he bothered to return, after leaving numerous others unanswered. She counted: six different numbers had called repeatedly, and Aleix had answered the first. No more.
She tried to put the scattered data in order while she mentally went over the story Gina and Aleix himself had given in previous statements. A story that wasn’t wholly true. Why had he and Marc Castells argued? An argument bad enough to leave Marc’s t-shirt bloodstained. To whom did the number that had persistently called that night, and that Aleix had bothered to answer the next day, belong? That, at least, would be easy to discover. In fact, after some quick checks, she obtained the user’s name: Rubén Ramos García. She sighed. The name meant nothing to her. She then entered another of the numbers that appeared most in the list. Regina Ballester. Gina Martí’s mother . . . They were certainly going to have things to ask Aleix on Monday.
She looked at her watch. Yes, she still had time. She put the name Rubén Ramos García into the computer. Seconds later, thanks to the magic of information technology, a photo of a young, sallow man appeared on the screen. Leire, completely bewildered, read the details. What the hell was a young guy from a good family, as the superintendent would say, doing mixing with this kid who clearly didn’t belong in his social circle? Rubén Ramos García, twenty-four years old, cited in January of the year before and again in November for possession of cocaine. Suspected of drug dealing, unproven. Another note: questioned in relation to a skinhead assault on some immigrants who ended up dropping the charges.
Leire made a quick report of all this and left it on the table, just as she’d agreed with the inspector. Then, not wanting to stop to think about anything, she picked up her helmet and went for her motorbike.
Martina Andreu entered the gates of the Parc de la Ciutadella at exactly twenty past five. Some dark clouds were beginning to appear from the sea and a wind, warm but strong, was shaking the branches of the trees. In the flowerbeds, somewhat dry from the lack of rain, groups of youngsters were playing the guitar or simply enjoying a beer. Summer in the city. She moved with quick steps over the ground until she reached the fountain, and the sound of the water gave her a fleeting sensation of coolness. She walked around it, making her way toward a corner of the park beyond where there were two scattered benches. She looked around the space until she located a short, dark-haired woman with her back to her, playing with a little girl. The woman turned just as she was approaching and gave a slight nod.
“Rosa?”
“Yes.” She was nervous: dark shadows under her eyes revealed a fatigue that was the result of a lifetime. “My love, Mama is going to speak to this lady about work. Play by yourself over there for a minute, OK?”
The little girl looked at the new arrival gravely. She’d inherited her mother’s shadows, but in exchange she had beautiful black eyes.
“We’ll be on that bench,” added Rosa, and pointed to the nearest. “Don’t go too far, my love.”
Martina went toward the bench and Rosa followed her; both sat down. The wind was becoming stronger, boding a night of rain. About time, thought the sergeant.
“It’s going to rain,” said Rosa, who didn’t take her eyes off her daughter, or stop twisting her hands: short, sturdy fingers, hardened from cleaning strangers’ houses.
“How old is she?”
“Six.”
Martina smiled.
“A year younger than mine. They’re twins,” she clarified.
Rosa smiled at her, somewhat less nervous, although her hands were still tense. Complicity between mothers, thought the sergeant.
“What did you have to tell me, Rosa?” She didn’t want to seem impatient, but her time was running out. Seeing the woman wasn’t responding, she persisted. “Something about Dr. Omar?”
“I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing, Sergeant. I don’t want to get into trouble.” She lowered her head and clutched a medallion she wore around her neck.
“Calm down, Rosa. You thought you should call me, so it must be something important. You can trust me.”
The woman looked around and breathed: “It’s . . .”
“Yes?”
“I . . .” Finally she found the strength and decided to speak. “Promise me you won’t come looking for me, and I won’t have to make a statement at the station.”
Martina hated making promises she didn’t know she could keep, but this type of lie was part of her work.
“I promise you.”
“Good . . . I knew the doctor. He cured my little girl.” Her voice began to tremble. “I . . . I know you don’t believe in these things. But I saw it, day after day. The little one was getting worse every day.”
“What did she have?”
Rosa glanced at her sideways and held the medallion tightly.
“I swear by the Virgin, Señora. My little girl was bewitched. My husband didn’t even want to hear about it. He even raised his hand to me when I said so . . . but I knew.”
Martina suddenly felt cold, as if the woman by her side had brought it with her.
“And you took her to Dr. Omar’s clinic?”
“Yes. A friend recommended him to me, and we don’t live too far. So I took her and he cured her for me, Señora. He put his holy hands on her chest and banished the evil spirit.”
She crossed herself as she said it. Martina couldn’t help her icy tone when she asked: “Have you brought me here to tell me this?”
“No! No, I wanted you to know the doctor is a good man. A saint, Señora. But there’s something else. I didn’t have the money to pay him all at once and so I had to go back . . . I think I saw him the day he disappeared.”
The sergeant became alert.
“At what time?”
“In the evening, Señora, around eight. I went to pay him, and when I came out of the clinic I saw him.”
“Who did you see?”
“A man waiting at the front door, smoking, as if he hadn’t decided to go in.”
“What did he look like?” Martina took out her notepad, completely alert.
“There’s no need to describe him.” The woman almost broke down crying. “You . . . you know him. The following day I saw him again, with you, eating in a nearby restaurant.”
“Do you mean Inspector Salgado?”
“I don’t know his name. He was eating with you, like you were friends.”
“Are you sure?”
“I wouldn’t have called you if I wasn’t, Señora. But promise me no one will come to my house. If my husband finds out I took my daughter to that doctor . . .”
“Don’t worry,” whispered Martina. “Don’t say anything about this to anyone. But I need to be able to reach you. Give me a mobile number, or—”
“No! I come here every afternoon with the little one. If you need anything you already know where to find me.”
“Good.” Martina looked at her gravely. “I repeat, Rosa: don’t say a word about any of this.”
“I swear by the Virgin
, Señora.” Rosa kissed the medallion before rising from the bench. “Now I have to go.”
The little girl, who had stayed away from the conversation, turned on hearing her mother coming toward her. She still didn’t smile.
Martina Andreu watched them walk away. She should be going too, but her legs refused to move from the bench. The fountain’s gilded horses seemed to be rearing up against the wind still whipping the trees, and in the distance the echo of thunder could be heard. A summer storm, she said to herself. All this will be nothing more than a fucking summer storm.
19
The high-speed train from Madrid arrived at the scheduled time, defying years of delays in the country’s railway service. At this time in the evening, on a Friday in summer, the foyer of the station was replete with people hoping to exchange the suffocating city for the crowds of the beaches, even though that might mean a journey on a crammed train. Sitting on one of the benches in the large foyer, Leire watched people coming and going: hikers with backpacks who spoke in shouts, mothers with immense bags on their shoulders dragging little kids who insisted on clumsily putting the ticket in the slot, exhausted immigrants after a day of work which had almost certainly begun at dawn, tourists studying the departures board as if it were the tables of the law and not keeping an eye on their wallets. Leire’s careful gaze picked out two boys who were walking around the building without deciding to take a single train. Pickpockets, she said on seeing a look of complicity between them: an even bigger summer plague than mosquitoes and of course more difficult to combat. Petty robberies, non-existent sentences, bitter tourists and triumphant thieves: and this was only a best-case scenario. She was watching one of them going into the toilets after a middle-aged lady, clearly a foreigner, when she noticed someone sitting beside her.
“Spying on people?” asked the recent newcomer in an ironic tone. “Let me remind you that now you’re off-duty.”
She turned to him. The same mirrored sunglasses, the same two-day stubble, never more; the same brilliantly white teeth, the same hands. The same individual whom she’d bumped into in the waiting room of a physiotherapy clinic and who, after watching her like a wolf over his newspaper, had said to her: “Massages bring out my tenderest part. Shall we meet downstairs in about an hour?” And she’d nodded, amused, thinking it was a joke.
“Crime never sleeps,” replied Leire.
“Maybe not crime, but you should,” he joked. He stood up. “My lungs need nicotine. And I need a beer. Did you come by motorbike?”
“Yes.”
He gave her a quick kiss. Like her, he wasn’t a fan of public displays of affection, but it left her a taste of his mouth, wanting more.
“Why don’t we head toward the beach? I’ve spent a week suffocating in the heat of Madrid. I want to see the sea with you.”
The beach bar was proclaiming the arrival of Friday night with disco music, and the customers, their bodies glistening with suntan lotion, allowed themselves to be seduced by that rhythm somewhere between smooth and monotonous, and the offer of mojitos prepared by a beautiful young Latin American woman in an annexed bar. Knees bent and feet resting on the seat opposite, Tomás lit his third cigarette and ordered his second beer. He’d finished the first in almost one swallow and was watching the beach, already half empty, and that tranquil city sea, almost waveless, a dull blue.
“You don’t know how I’ve been longing for this . . .” he said, relaxing his shoulders and blowing out smoke slowly, as if he were expelling something within that was tiring him. He’d taken off his jacket and undone the top buttons of his shirt.
Leire smiled at him.
“You can have a dip if you want. They’re not pure and crystalline waters, but they’re not bad.”
“I’m not wearing my trunks,” he said. He yawned. “Also, right now I want to smoke and drink. Do you only want a Coca-Cola?”
“Yes.” She tried not to have the smoke in her face. Why did smoke nearby make her feel nauseated though her own didn’t?
“Well, what have you got to tell me? Any interesting cases?”
“The odd one or two. But let’s not talk about work, please. I’ve had a horrible week.”
“You’re right. Although at least yours is interesting. Audits at times of crisis are depressing.” He pulled her toward him and put his arm around her. “It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other.”
She didn’t answer and he continued talking.
“I’ve thought of calling you a few times, but I didn’t want to smother you. For a week it was rather intense.”
Intense. That was the word. One of them. Just being at his side, feeling that strong arm, awoke all the impulses of her body. It was strange. Pure sexual chemistry, like they were each made to take pleasure in the other.
“But the other day I couldn’t take it any more.” She didn’t ask why. “I knew I had to see you. At least this weekend.”
Leire kept her eyes on the sea, on some clouds moving at top speed on the horizon. She didn’t want to see them. “It’s going to rain,” she said.
“Don’t you like being on the beach in the rain?” “I’d prefer to be in bed. With you.”
They barely waited to enter the house. The proximity on the motorbike, combined with the tense atmosphere of the storm, was raising their temperatures and he began to touch her while still on the stairs, shameless. She didn’t resist at all. They kissed greedily on the threshold until she let go and dragged him inside by the hand. He didn’t let go of her for a moment, not even when he searched for her underwear with his fingers while he brushed her lips with his tongue without fully kissing her, leaving her wanting more. Their hands, interwoven against the door, were descending as she became more and more excited. When they reached her hips, he kissed her for real, forcefully, and pulled out his playful fingers. Then he lifted her and carried her to the bed.
Tomás wasn’t one of those that slept after making love, something that frankly was all the same to her. In fact, that day, she would have preferred it. Luckily, he wasn’t one who talked either: lying by her side, he stayed in physical contact, enjoying the silence. Outside, an intense rain was battering the streets. She let herself be soothed by the sound, by the contact, while she thought that this was the time. Maybe he didn’t have any right to know, as María had stressed the previous night, but she, in good conscience, should tell him. She wasn’t planning to ask him for anything, or demand any responsibility of him. Just tell him the truth.
“Leire,” he whispered. “I want to tell you something.”
“Me too.” He couldn’t see her smile, in the dark. “You go first.”
He turned her face toward him.
“I’ve done something crazy.”
“You?”
“Don’t get angry, OK? Promise me.”
“Promise. And I say likewise.”
“I’ve rented a boat. For next month. I want to go to the islands, Ibiza or Menorca, for a few days. And I’d like you to come with me.”
For a moment she couldn’t believe it. The idea of travelling with him, just the two of them, of entire nights of non-stop fucking in a cabin, of beaches with blue waters and romantic dinners on deck, left her speechless. She thought of María, carrying buckets of water to construct the surgery in the African village, and started laughing.
“What are you laughing at?”
She couldn’t stop.
“Nothing . . .” she stammered, not able to avoid another giggle.
“Do you think I can’t operate a boat or something?”
“It’s not that . . . really . . .”
He started tickling her.
“You’re laughing at me! Are you laughing at me? You’ll . . . !”
“Stop, stop . . . Stop, please! Enough!”
The last order came out as definitive because he stopped, although he said in a threatening tone: “Tell me you’ll come . . . or I’ll tickle you to death.”
Leire exhaled. Now. She couldn’t put i
t off any longer. The rain seemed to have eased off. A storm moving away, she thought.
She inhaled and began.
“Tomás, there’s—”
A telephone interrupted her.
“It’s yours,” he said.
Leire jumped out of bed, relieved by the momentary breathing space. She took a few moments to find her mobile because she didn’t know where she’d left her jacket. She found it on the dining room floor, beside the door, and managed to answer it before they hung up. The call was brief, barely seconds long, but enough to tell her the terrible news.
“Has something happened?” he asked. He was kneeling, naked, in the middle of the bed.
“I have to go,” she answered. “I’m sorry.”
She scooped up her clothes at top speed and ran toward the bathroom, still overwhelmed by what she’d just heard.
“I’ll come back when I can,” she said before leaving. “And we’ll talk, OK?”
20
It had already started raining when Héctor arrived at the station. He went in hope of finding Martina Andreu, but her office was empty. He greeted a couple of acquaintances, feeling very uncomfortable, as if this were no longer his place and, unable to avoid it, he looked sideways at the door of his own office. Although technically he’d been on holiday, everyone knew what had happened. He’d spent many years in stations, and they were like every place of work: a hotbed of rumors and comments. Above all if they were about someone who up to then had distinguished himself with an unblemished record. With decisive steps he went toward Leire Castro’s desk and then he saw the report, placed on the computer keyboard in a file. Leaning against the desk, he looked through the report on Aleix Rovira’s calls. This kid was turning out to be an inexhaustible source of surprises, he thought on seeing the names Rubén Ramos García and Regina Ballester. However, the first name was more a suspicion confirmed than a true surprise, he said to himself, remembering the conversation he’d just had with Óscar Vaquero.
He’d arranged to meet him at the door of a gym in the city centre, and while he waited for him he thought the boy must have taken the idea of losing weight seriously. However, when a young man, not very tall but with broad shoulders, bulging arms threatening to rip his T-shirt sleeves and not fat at all, approached him he had to look twice to recognize him from the description he’d been given of Óscar Vaquero. Of course, two years had passed since that video which ended in Marc Castells’ suspension and Óscar’s changing schools. And judging by the results, he’d made good use of the time. Then, sitting on a street terrace despite the clouds beginning to cover the sky, he could see that the change in Óscar wasn’t only physical. Héctor ordered a black coffee and Óscar, after a little thought, opted for a Diet Coke.
