The Summer of Dead Toys

by Antonio Hill

  “Did you hear about what happened to Marc Castells?” asked Héctor.

  “Yes.” He shrugged slightly. “A shame.”

  “Oh? I didn’t think you cared for him too much,” the inspector hinted.

  The boy smiled.

  “Not for him, or for the majority of people at that school . . . But that doesn’t mean them dying makes me happy.” Something in his voice partly contradicted his words. “This isn’t America. Here people on the margins don’t go into the school with a shotgun and top everyone in their class.”

  “Through lack of guns or the desire to do it?” asked the inspector, keeping the tone light.

  “I don’t think I should have this conversation about homicidal angst with a cop . . .”

  “We cops were also students once. But, seriously,” he said, changing tone and taking a cigarette from the packet, “it’s clear that this whole video affair must have damaged you.”

  “Well, that definitely damages you,” replied the boy and pointed at the tobacco. “The truth is, I don’t really like talking about it . . . It’s like another time. Another Óscar. But, yes of course, it fucked me up a bit.” He looked away, as if suddenly fascinated by the manoeuvres of a minibus on the opposite corner trying to get into a parking space that was obviously too narrow. “I was the fatty gay boy.” He had a faint, bitter smile. “Now I’m a gay stud. I try to forget the me of that time, but sometimes he comes back.”

  Héctor nodded.

  “He comes back when you least expect it, doesn’t he?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “I told you, we were all boys once.”

  “I kept some photos from then, so as not to forget. But tell me, what do you want?”

  “I’m just trying to get an idea of what Marc Castells was like. When someone dies, everyone speaks well of them,” and he surprised himself thinking that in this case it wasn’t necessarily true.

  “Yeah . . . And you’ve come looking for someone who might hate him? But why? Wasn’t it an accident?”

  “We’re closing the case, and we can’t rule out other possibilities.”

  Óscar nodded.

  “Yeah. Well then, I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong person. I didn’t hate Marc. Not then, not now. He was one of the few people I spoke to.”

  “Weren’t you surprised that he put up that video?”

  “Inspector, don’t talk rubbish. Marc would never have done that. The truth is, he didn’t do it. Everyone knew that. That’s why he was only suspended for a week.”

  “So he took the blame for someone else?”

  “Of course. In exchange for academic help. Marc wasn’t very clever, you know? And Aleix had him by the balls. He did all his exams.”

  “Hold on, are you telling me that it was Aleix Rovira who made the video and put it on the internet, and Marc took the blame for him?”

  “Yes. That’s why I left. That school made me sick. Aleix was number one, the clever boy, the untouchable. Marc as well, but less so.”

  “I understand,” said the inspector.

  “But in the end that imbecile Aleix did me a favor. And I think things are better for me than for him, going by what I’ve heard.”

  “What have you heard?”

  “Let’s just say Aleix is taking a walk on the wild side. And he’s enough of an idiot to think he’s a hard ass. You get me?”

  “No. Hard in what sense?”

  “Look, everyone knows that if you want something for the weekend, something to enjoy yourself, you only have to call Aleix.”

  “Are you telling me he’s a dealer?

  “He was an amateur but I think recently he’s been taking it more seriously. Dealing and taking. Or that’s what they say. And that he’s hanging out with bad people as well.”

  So now, seeing the name of another kid of a similar age and with a history of cocaine possession, Héctor knew that Óscar hadn’t lied to him. He didn’t know if this had anything to do with Marc’s death, but it was clear that Aleix Rovira had a lot of explaining to do: about fights, about drugs, about blame being put on someone else . . . He longed to put the pressure on this brat, he thought. And now he had what he needed to do it.

  “Inspector?”

  The voice startled him. He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he hadn’t heard anyone come in.

  “Señora Vidal. Were you looking for me?”

  “Yes. But please call me Joana. Señora Vidal makes me think of my mother.”

  She was wearing the same clothes as before and looked tired.

  “Would you like to sit down?”

  She hesitated.

  “I’d prefer . . . Would you mind if we went for a drink?”

  “No, of course not. I can offer you a coffee if you want.”

  “I was thinking a gin and tonic, Inspector, not a coffee.”

  He looked at his watch and smiled.

  “Héctor. And you’re right. After six coffee gives you insomnia.”

  It was bucketing down with rain when they emerged, so they went into the first bar they found, one of those lunchtime places that only survived in the evenings thanks to locals who didn’t move from the bar, where they discussed football and consumed beer after beer. The tables were free, so despite the waiter’s reproachful gaze Héctor directed Joana to the one furthest from the bar, where they could talk in peace. The waiter reluctantly wiped it, more attentive to the conversation continuing at the bar about Barça’s new signings than to the customers. However, he was quick to bring them two strong gin and tonics, more so that they would leave him to his discussion than out of generosity.

  “Do you smoke?” said Héctor.

  She shook her head.

  “I gave up years ago. In Paris you can’t smoke anywhere.” “Well, it won’t be long here. But for the moment we’re resisting. Does it bother you?”

  “Not at all. I like it actually.”

  Suddenly they both felt uncomfortable, like a couple of strangers who kiss in a seedy bar and ask themselves what the hell they are doing. Héctor cleared his throat and drank a gulp of gin and tonic. He couldn’t help a grimace of disgust.

  “That is terrible.”

  “It won’t kill us,” she replied. And she took a long and brave gulp.

  “Why did you come to the station? There’s something you didn’t tell us before, isn’t there?”

  “I knew you’d noticed.”

  “Look . . .” He felt uncomfortable talking to her in such a familiar way, but he continued. “I’m going to be completely honest with you, although it may seem cruel: this may be one of those cases that is never resolved. I haven’t had many in my career, but in all of them doubt remains, hovering in the air. Did he fall? Did he jump? Was he pushed? Without witnesses, and with very little evidence suggesting a crime has been committed, they end up being classified as ‘accidental death,’ through lack of evidence. And the doubt is always there.”

  “I know. That’s exactly what I want to avoid. I have to know the truth. I already know that it may seem contradictory to you, and as my ex delights in reminding me every time he sees me, it’s a belated interest. But I’m not going to leave without knowing what happened.”

  “Maybe it was an accident. You should count on that.”

  “When you can assure me that it was an accident, I’ll believe you. Really.”

  They both drank at the same time. The ice was melting, and the gin and tonic flowed better, as did the conversation. Joana inhaled and decided to trust in this inspector with the melancholy expression and kindly eyes.

  “The other day I received another email.” She searched in her bag and took out the printed piece of paper. “Read it.”

  From : alwaysiris@hotmail.com

  To: joanavidal@gmail.net

  Subject:

  Hello . . . I’m sorry to email you, but I didn’t know who to turn to. I heard about what happened and I think we should see each other. It’s important that you don’t say anything to any
one until you and I speak in person. Please, do it for Marc, I know you’d begun to write to each other and I hope I’ll be able to trust you.

  I’m flying back to Barcelona from Dublin next Sunday morning. I’d like to see you straight away and tell you some things about Marc . . . and about me.

  Many thanks,

  Alwaysiris

  Héctor lifted his head from the piece of paper.

  “I don’t understand it.” The threads of this case seemed to

  be multiplying, pointing in different directions, nothing definite. If half an hour before he’d been relatively certain that

  the fight between Aleix and Marc had something to do with

  drugs, now this new name had appeared, Iris. There’d been an

  Iris in Marc’s phone. “Alwaysiris. It’s a strange way to sign an

  email, isn’t it? As if it weren’t her name. As if it were a form

  of homage.”

  Joana picked up her gin and tonic, her hand shaking a little.

  She brought it to her lips, but didn’t manage to drink. The group

  at the bar was reaching the level of passionate discussion. “I was on the point of telling my ex-husband yesterday. Of

  asking him if he knew anything about this Iris, if the name

  sounded familiar. He was so cruel, I thought it was better not

  to. Also, this girl asked me not to tell anyone, as if there were

  danger, as if she were hiding something . . .”

  “You’ve done the right thing in telling me,” Héctor reassured her.

  “I hope so,” she smiled. “I barely recognize Enric. Want to

  know something? When we were boyfriend and girlfriend I

  thought I would be with him all my life.”

  “Doesn’t everyone think that?”

  “I suppose so. But everything changed so much when we got

  married . . .”

  “Is that why you left?”

  “That, and the idea of being a mother terrified me.” Joana finished off her gin and tonic and put it back on the

  table.

  “It sounds awful, doesn’t it?”

  “Fear is human. Only idiots are immune to it.”

  She laughed.

  “Nice try, Inspector Salgado.” She looked toward the door.

  “Would you mind if we took a walk? I think it’s stopped raining. I need some air.”

  The rain had left a shiny layer over a city preparing for the weekend. There was a slight breeze, not much, but between that and the drenched streets they breathed a freshness welcome after days of intensely muggy weather. Héctor and Joana began to wander aimlessly, walking toward Plaça Espanya and once there they heard animated ethnic music coming from the Montjuïc Palace area, where it appeared one of those summer parties was being celebrated. Maybe they felt comfortable with one another, maybe neither of them felt like returning to an empty house; what is certain is that both, with a tacit accord, walked toward the music. Night was falling, and the illuminated stage attracted them. En route stalls with empanadas, tacos and mojitos by the jug offered their produce between colored flags and puddles of water. Those in charge of the stalls had tried to put a brave face on the bad weather, but it was obvious that the rain had spoiled part of the party.

  “May I ask if you’re married?”

  “I was.”

  “Another victim of falling out of love?”

  “And who isn’t?”

  She laughed. It had been a while since she felt so at ease

  with someone. He stopped in front of one of the stalls and ordered a pair of mojitos.

  “You shouldn’t have, Inspector. One shouldn’t buy a single woman more than one drink.”

  “Shhh, lower your voice.” Going to pay, he took his mobile from his pocket and saw he had three missed calls that had gone unheard in the Caribbean beat. “Excuse me a moment,” he said, and moved a few steps away. “What? Sorry, I’m on a street and there’s a lot of noise. That’s why I didn’t hear the mobile. What? When? In her house? I’m coming.”

  Joana watched the stage, with the two mojitos in her hands. At the bottom, the fountains of Montjuïc were throwing out their streams of color and the street began to fill with people who, like them, had decided to join the party after the rain. The mojito was good. She took a long drink and held out the other glass to Héctor with an almost coquettish gesture, but her smile evaporated on seeing the expression on his face.

  21

  The Martís’ house seemed to have been invaded by a troop of wary soldiers, who spoke in hushed tones and carried out the pertinent tasks with serious faces. In the lounge, a severe Lluís Savall gave succinct orders to his men, out of the corner of his eye watching Salvador Martí and his wife, who, despite being seated beside each other on the dark sofa, gave the impression of finding themselves kilometres apart. His gaze was fixed on the door; she was tense, braced by an inner force, and her dry, reddened eyes betrayed a mixture of pain and incredulity. In that closed space the horror was only in their minds, in images they would manage to erase only with difficulty. In the bathroom, however, the tragedy lay unfolded in all its macabre splendour: scattered strokes on the white walls of the bathtub, a razor blade on the ledge, the water dyed red, and Gina’s inert body, with the tranquil appearance of a sleeping child. Opposite the door, Héctor listened attentively to what a serious Agent Castro was telling him while a colleague from forensics finished collecting evidence of the tragedy. It wasn’t a long tale; no need for it to be so. Regina Ballester had gone to collect her husband at the airport around six, but the plane was delayed. During the wait, which was over an hour, she called her daughter a number of times, but Gina didn’t pick up the phone. Salvador Martí’s plane finally landed, and they both arrived home around a quarter past nine, after negotiating a huge traffic jam caused by the rain and the weekend rush. Regina had immediately gone up to her daughter’s room, and not finding her there thought she’d maybe gone out, but when she passed the bathroom she saw that the door was ajar and the light was on. Her screams on seeing Gina in the bathtub, submerged in a sea of blood, alerted her husband. It was he who called the emergency services, although he already knew that there was nothing medical science could do to revive his only daughter. The apparent conclusion, from lack of any other evidence, was that Gina Martí had slit her wrists in the bathtub.

  “Was there a note?”

  Leire nodded.

  “On the computer, barely two lines.” She consulted her

  notes. “It said something like: ‘Cant take it any more. I have 2 do this . . . I cant live with the remorse.’ ”

  “Remorse?” Héctor imagined Gina, a bit drunk, indignant, looking at Marc sitting on the window ledge. Walking toward him, possessed by a grudge, pushing him before he could turn around and make her waver in her decision. That he could picture. What he couldn’t believe was that this same girl, temperamental enough not to accept no for an answer, could then go downstairs to sleep in the bed of the boy she loved and had just killed and stay there, asleep or not, as if nothing had happened. He didn’t believe that Gina Martí would have been capable of acting with such coldness.

  “Inspector Salgado, they told me you were on holiday.” The forensic scientist, a slight and lively woman, famous for her efficiency and her sharp tongue, turned toward them and interrupted their thoughts.

  “I missed you, Celia.”

  “Well, for someone missing me so much you’re late arriving. We were waiting in case you wanted to see it.” She looked inside with the lack of expression of someone who’d spent years examining cadavers, young, old, healthy, sick. “I heard there was a suicide note?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then I don’t have much to add.” But her tone, her furrowed brow, said otherwise.

  Héctor went into the bathroom and looked at poor Gina’s lifeless body. He suddenly remembered her outburst on the sofa, when she shouted that she and Marc loved each other, unde
r the condescending gaze of her mother. He’d detected a flash of triumph in her voice at that moment: Marc was no longer here to contradict her; she could cling to that love, real or not. With time, with people unfamiliar with this affair, she would even have changed her story: removed Marc’s rejection of her on his last night, transformed him into the young man in love who gave her a kiss, told her affectionately to ‘Stay awake, I won’t be long,’ and then fell into the void in an unexplained accident.

  “Agent Castro tells me you questioned her yesterday. Did she seem like a decisive person? Sure of herself?”

  Decisive? Héctor hesitated only for an instant. Leire’s voice was more unequivocal.

  “No. Not at all.”

  “Well, in that case she had a good pulse. Look.” Celia Ruiz turned to the bathtub and without thinking twice she took the right hand out of the water. “One cut, deep and firm. The other one is the same. Teenage suicides usually make a few cuts before daring to make the definitive one. Not her: she knew what she wanted and her hand didn’t shake. Neither of them.”

  “Can we remove the body?” asked an agent.

  “I’m done. Inspector Salgado?”

  He nodded and moved away from the bathtub to let the others past.

  “Thanks, Celia.”

  “No problem.” Héctor and Leire were going out of the door when Celia added: “You’ll have the full report Monday, OK?”

  “Yes, sir.” Héctor smiled at her. “Let’s go to her room. I want to see this note.”

  Leire accompanied the inspector. The box of teddy bears was in the same corner that the agent had seen it in the previous evening. On the table, beside the computer, there was a glass with the remains of some juice.